Traduction Masquer
Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

21.

Will it be said that the law in these early times was incomplete as regards not committing adultery, till it was completed by the Lord, who added that no one should look on a woman to lust after her? This is what you imply in the way you quote the words, "Ye have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, Do not lust even." "Here," you say, "is the fulfillment." But let us take the words as they stand in the Gospel, without any of your modifications, and see what character you give to those righteous men of antiquity. The words are: "Ye have heard that it has been said, thou shall not commit adultery; but I say unto you, that whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." ¹ In your opinion, then, Enoch and Seth, and the rest, committed adultery in their hearts; and either their heart was not the temple of God, or they committed adultery in the temple of God. But if you dare not say this, how can you say that Christ, when He came, fulfilled the law, which was already in the time of those men complete?

Edition Masquer
Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

21.

An forte lex non moechandi apud illos iustos antiquos semiplena erat, donec a domino adimpleretur addente, ne quis ad concupiscendum videat mulierem? Sic enim commemorasti ipsam sententiam: ‛Audistis dictum esse: Non moechaberis; ego autem dico vobis, ne concupiscatis quidem’. Adimpletio est inquis. p. 520,3 Explica plane ipsa verba evangelica, noli tuis extenuare, quod dictum est, et vide, quid de illis antiquissimis iustis senseris. Audistis inquit quia dictum est: non moechaberis; ego autem dico vobis: si quis viderit mulierem ad concupiscendum eam, iam moechatus est eam in corde suo. Itane vero illi iusti, Seth vel Enoch vel si qui eis similes fuerunt, moechabantur in cordibus suis et aut non erat cor eorum templum dei, aut moechabantur in templo dei? Quod si non audes dicere, quomodo etiam de hac re legem illorum, quae apud illos iam tunc plena erat, modo veniens Christus implevit?